US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks

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US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Peter Presland - 25-01-2011

I'm drawing attention to this latest John Pilger article on this thread because it makes specific reference to the leak in the Spring of last year which appeared to outline CIA strategy to deal with Wikileaks and triggered its start.

It's a good long, typical Pilger piece and well worth the read - IMHO

US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Magda Hassan - 22-02-2011

Karl Rove, Sweden, and the Eight Major Aberrations in the Police Sex Crime Reporting Process in the Assange Case. By Naomi Wolf

Professors blogg proudly welcome Naomi Wolf as guest author in this column. Naomi Wolf is a political activist and social critic whose most recent book is "Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries". Professors blogg publishes here as guest-blog her newest article on the Assange case.[/FONT]

[Image: Naomi+W+-++professors+blogg.jpg]

Karl Rove, Sweden, and the Eight Major Aberrations in the Police Sex Crime Reporting Process in the Assange Case [/FONT]
by Naomi Wolf [/FONT]

[/FONT]
Now that excellent reporting from Andrew Kreig of the Justice Integrity Project has confirmed Karl Rove's role as an advisor to the government of of Sweden which is pursuing Julian Assange on sexual misconduct charges, it is important to see the many aberrations in the processing of the sexual misconduct complaints against Assange.[/FONT]
Dr. Brian Palmer of Uppsala University in Sweden explained on Kreig's radio show Jan 13 that Karl Rove has been working directly as an advisor to the governing Moderate Party. Kreig also reported in Connecticut Watchdog that the Assange's accusers' lawyer is a partner in a law firm, BorgstrÃ¶m and BodstrÃ¶m, whose other name partner, Thomas BodstrÃ¶m, is a former Swedish Minister of Justice. In that office, BodstrÃ¶m helped the US break international and Swedish law by approving a 2001 CIA rendition request that Sweden let the CIA fly two asylum-seekers from Sweden to Egypt, where they were tortured-- which is against Sweden's position of neutrality. [/FONT]

This background makes it necessary to publicize the weird aberrations in the police's and prosecutors' handling of these complaints, which are obvious to anyone who has worked supporting women who have been raped or sexually assaulted and gone through the police process.[/FONT]

Based on my 23 years of reporting on global rape law and my five years of supporting women at rape crisis centers and battered women's shelters through the legal system in the US and in Europe, this case is not being treated as a normal rape or sexual assault case, and the new details of the police transcript confirm my position further. Assange's lawyers, and the UK court hearing the extradition issue today, is unlikely to be familiar with the normal standards for rape and sexual assault complaints. The Assange transcript is not a transcript of reports of sexual assault like the transcripts of assaults of the dozens of victims whom I have supported in my years working with victims of sex crimes. Here is why.[/FONT]

1) POLICE NEVER PURSUE COMPLAINTS IN WHICH THERE IS NO INDICATION OF[/FONT]
LACK OF CONSENT.[/FONT]

In police reports of sex crimes, there is ordinarily some indication of lack of consent or else compliance because there is a perceived or real threat of force. Don't take my word for it: look at any other police reports in ANY country in the West, including Sweden. Ask Sweden to produce ANY other police report in which any action was taken in a situation in which there is no stated lack of consent or threat of force. Police simply won't take action on a complaint if there is no indication at all of a lack of consent or else of consent in the face of fear of violence. [/FONT]

The Assange transcripts, in contrast to any typical sex crime report, is a set of transcripts in which neither of the women have indicated a lack of consent. There is one case of in which Miss W asserts that she was asleep in which case it is indeed illegal to have sex with her but her deleted tweets show that she was not asleep, and subsequent discussion indicates consent. This transcript, with no stated indication of a lack of consent, is an utter aberration in normal police processing of sex crime complaints.[/FONT]

There are other major aberrations in the processing of this case, which any rape victim advocate will recognize.[/FONT]

2) POLICE DO NOT ALLOW TWO WOMEN REPORT AN ACCUSATION ABOUT ONE[/FONT]
MAN TOGETHER. [/FONT]

The transcripts indicate that the police processed the two accusers' complaints together. All leaks to the media present the two women's narratives together. The two women themselves reported that they went to the police and gave their testimonies together. This is completely unheard-of in sex crime reporting procedures, it violates law and process, and the burden should be on Clare Mongomery, QC or Marianne Ny to produce a single other example of this being permitted, EVER. Never, never, never will two alleged victims be allowed by police [/FONT]to come in to a precinct and tell their stories together, even or especially if the stories are about one man. [/FONT]

This indeed is a great frustration to those who advocate for rape victims. You can have seven alleged victims all reporting about the same man even confirming methods and tactics -- and none will be permitted to tell their stories together. It doesn't matter if they coordinated in advance with one another as the Assange accusers did or if they are close friends and came in together for moral support -- the police simply will not take their complaints together or even in the same room. [/FONT]

Their wishes won't matter: the women will be separated, given separate interview times and even locations, separate case officers, and their cases will be processed completely separately in separate confidential paperwork. The prosecutor, rather than being able to draw on both women's testimony at the same time, as Marianne Ny is doing, will actually have to struggle to get the judge to even allow a second or additional accusation or evidence into one case from another case. Usually other such evidence will NOT be allowed. [/FONT]

Under normal procedures, if the prosecutor were even willing to take a case in which there was no stated lack of consent in the reports, Miss A would still have her case processed by itself, and then Miss W's case would proceed by itself -- with absolutely no easy ability for the prosecutor to draw from one set of testimony to the next. The reason for this is sound -- it is to keep testimony from contaminating separate trials -- but it is a source of great frustration to[/FONT]
prosecutors and rape advocates, let alone victims. The dual testimonies taken in this case are utterly atypical and against all Western and especially Swedish rape law practice and policy.[/FONT]

3) PROSECUTORS NEVER LET TWO ALLEGED VICTIMS HAVE THE SAME[/FONT]
LAWYER.[/FONT]
[/FONT]

Both women are being advised, as we saw above, by the same high-powered, politically connected lawyer. That would never happen under normal circumstances because the prosecutor would not permit the risk of losing the case because of contamination of evidence and the risk of the judge objecting to possible coaching or shared testimony in the context of a shared attorney.[/FONT]

Why would the Swedish prosecutor, Marianne Ny, allow such a thing in this case? Perhaps bearing in mind the threat that Assange will be extradited by the US government to the US once he is in Sweden -- because she does not expect ever to have a real trial in Sweden, let alone have to have to try to win one.[/FONT]

4) POLICE NEVER EVER TAKE TESTIMONY FROM FORMER BOYFRIENDS. [/FONT]

In the Miss. A. transcript is a truly bizarre aberration, the report of a former boyfriend of "Miss A.' who testified to police that she always used a condom in her relationship with him. Anyone who supports rape victims through the reporting process is feeling the top of her head lift off from this wildly atypical and actually illegal inclusion of an alleged victim's former sex partner's in the complaint. [/FONT]

There is rape shield law in Sweden as throughout Europe that PREVENTS anyone not involved in the case to say anything, positive or negative, to police about the previous sexual habits of the complainant. No matter how much a former or current boyfriend would want to testify to police about his girlfriends' sex practices -- even if the woman complaining at the police precinct about an alleged assault strongly wished her former boyfriend or current boyfriend or even her husband to testify in support of her with this informationthe police will, properly, refuse to hear it; not allow it to be said or entered into the record; not record it. [/FONT]

The only reason for Police to include the unprecedented and illegal testimony of a former boyfriend about Miss. A's assiduous use of condoms with him would conceivably be to generate a context in media coverage in which Miss A's dispute with Assange about the condom would gain traction in a context in which characteristically it would be completely disregarded by police. [/FONT]

This inclusion would necessitate the okay from much higher in the criminal justice food chain because after two decades of successful feminist agitation on this issue -- it now is so contrary to law and policy for sex crime reports to include any information at all from former lovers about the sex life of the alleged victim. [/FONT]

Naomi Wolf speaking at Brooklyn Law School, January 29, 2009. Photo: Wikipedia

5) A LAWYER NEVER TYPICALLY TAKES ON TWO ALLEGED RAPE VICTIMS OF THE SAME MAN AS CLIENTS. [/FONT]

A high-powered attorney -- or any attorney would never allow him or herself to represent two women claiming to have been victimized by the same man, for the reasons above: the second woman's testimony could be weaker than the first's, thus weakening his or her chances of success in court and also risking that a judge will object to cross-contamination of the women's stories. Why would a layer weaken his chances thus of his clients' victories in court? Again, keeping in mind the threat of extradition to the US in this case, he might do so because he does not expect them actually ever to go to trial.[/FONT]

6) A RAPE VICTIM NEVER USES A CORPORATE ATTORNEY.[/FONT]

[/FONT]
Typically, if a woman needs a lawyer in addition to the prosecutor who is pursuing her case (as in the Swedish system) she will be advised by rape advocates, the prosecutor and the police to use a criminal attorney -- someone who handles rape cases or other kinds of assault, who is familiar with the judges and the courts in these cases. She will never hire a high-powered corporate attorney who does not specialize in these cases or work with the local court that would be hearing her sex crime [/FONT]case if it ever got to trial. Given that a law firm such as this one charges about four hundred euros an hour, and a typical rape case takes eight months to a year to get through the courts given that legal advice will cost tens of thousands of euros, which young women victims usually do not have access to it is reasonable to ask: who is paying the legal bills?[/FONT]

7) A RAPE VICTIM IS NEVER ENCOURAGED TO MAKE ANY KIND OFCONTACT WITH HER ASSAILANT AND SHE MAY NEVER USE POLICE TO COMPEL HER ALLEGED ASSAILANT TO TAKE MEDICAL TESTS.[/FONT]

The two women went to police to ask if they could get Assange to take an HIV test. [/FONT]Sources close to the investigation confirm that indeed Assange was asked by police to take an HIV test, which came back negative. This is utterly unheard of and against law and standard sex crime policy.[/FONT]

Under ordinary procedures, the women's wishes for the alleged assailant to take medical tests would be completely discouraged by rape advocates and completely deterred and disregarded by police.[/FONT]

First, the State normally has no power to compel a man who has not been convicted, let alone formally charged, to take any medical tests whatsoever. Rape victims usually fear STD's or AIDS infection, naturally enough, and the normal police and prosecutiorial guidance is for them to take their own battery of tests you don't [/FONT]need the man's test results to know if you have contracted a disease-- and victims are advise to stay well away from him and not to contact him. Indeed normal rape kit processing, including in Sweden, includes such tests for the alleged victim as a matter of course, partly to help avoid any contact between the victim and the assailant outside legal channels. [/FONT]

The inclusion in rape kits of HIV and STD tests by police makes the narrative that the women need the police in order to 'get Assange tested' implausible and unnecessary, as well as a violation of normal law and procedure, unless the actual goal is to find some way to get him back to Sweden for extradition. The police never act as a medical go-between in this question. [/FONT]

There is one case in the US in which a man has been convicted AFTER giving AID to another partner (in this case another man) and the women in a case such as this could have that option to have Assange tested, under normal circumstances, only after they had been infected with AIDS and only if they then charged Assange then with infecting them -- but not, again frustratingly to [/FONT]rape victims and advocates, before there is any medical consequence to them that they can prove. Plus, that -- the hypothetical HIV infection -- under normal police [/FONT]processing would have to be their charge, not sex assault, in order to achieve that [/FONT]outcome of an HIV test, which in this case it is not.[/FONT]

The Police do not act as medical mediators for STD testing,, since rapists are dangerous and vindictive. Victims are NEVER advised to manage, even with police guidance, any further communication with them that is not through formal judicial channels.[/FONT]

8) POLICE ANDS PROSECUTORS PRETTY MUCH NEVER LEAK POLICE TRANSCRIPTS DURING AN ACTIVE INVESTIGATION BECAUSE THEY FACE PUNISHMENT FOR DOING SO.[/FONT]

The full transcripts of the women's police complaints have been leaked to the US media. The only people who have access to these are police, prosecutors and the attorneys. Often, frustratingly, rape victims themselves cannot get their own full set of records related to their cases. In normal circumstances, there would be an investigation of the police who had access to the documents, and the prosecutors, for the same reasons described above -- the risk of contamination of evidence and derailing of a trial. [/FONT]

Police and prosecutors who leak these confidential documents face serious penalties and lawyers who do so can be disbarred. In this case, no one is being investigated or facing any professional consequences. The only way such a leak could have happened [/FONT]from police or prosecutors is if there was a signal from above that they could and should do so with impunity.[/FONT]

[/FONT]
Major aberrations in normal sex crime reporting and investigating procedures, all possible only if directed from much much higher up the political chain. Highest up the political food chain is a leadership being advised by Karl Rove -- who was party to crimes such as rendition and torture that Wikileaks addresses, and that further Wikileaks revelations may well reveal.[/FONT]

These eight bizarre aberrations, which led me from the first, as an advocate for rape victims with many years of experience helping victims who are going through a similar process as Miss W and Miss A, to raise an alarm about the falsified and entirely unusual nature of these procedures, are even more dramatically obvious with the release of the police records. Prosecutors, intelligence services and perhaps even Karl Rove are counting on general ignoranve of normal rape reporting procedures to conceal the strange nature of this record. [/FONT]

The political background and the fact that Assange was under surveillance by Swedish and US intelligence services in Sweden even before he ever went home with Miss W or Miss A, is all important to consider in light of the serious consequences of the hearings taking place in Britain now. [/FONT]

US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Trowbridge H. Ford - 22-02-2011

Seems to me that the Pentagon effort to destroy Wikileaks, about back this time last year, has been replaced by an attempt to get Julian Assange off the hook with a deadend prosecution which, I think, will result in his being released in Britain, and left to run what's now left of Wikileaks.

Now what could have happened during the interim? Are there any, say murders, things in the leaking field which suddenly changed Washington's mind about possible targets?

US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Peter Lemkin - 25-02-2011

2011-02-24 Swedish Newspaper Aftonbladet Hosts Chat with Julian Assange
Submitted by kgosztola on Thu, 02/24/2011 - 23:11

The following is a chat that recently took place on the Swedish news website Aftonbladet with Julian Assange. Assange talks about his trial, the possibility of extradition to the United States, why he thinks he won't get a fair trial in Sweden, how WikiLeaks is faring currently, whether WikiLeaks will go on if he is found guilty and sentenced to jail, and more. Here it is re-published in full:

Julian Assange: Hello everyone!

Kommentar frÃ¥n Olof: Do you see yourself as a modern-day freedom fighter?

Julian Assange: The freedom to communicate knowledge is, to me, the most important freedom. It is the freedom on which all other freedoms and rights depend. Concepts such as the right to representation, freedom from arbitary detention or torture all need to be voiced and evidence for them made clear. This can only be done effectively if the central freedom - the right to communicate is strong. In fighting for this freedom, we fight for all freedoms.

Kommentar frÃ¥n John: How do you feel about the court decision today?

Julian Assange: It was not a surprise. Over 95% of EU arrest warrants result in such an outcome in the lower courts. The judge involved, Riddle was the same judge that first put me in prison. I am of course, annoyed at the tremendous distraction from our work in the revolutions in the middle east. This angers me, but on the other hand, the process does mean we and others such as Fair Trials International can inspire law reforms in Sweden and europe.

Kommentar frÃ¥n Maria: What do you base your assumptions on that Sweden will send you to USA?

Julian Assange: This is an interesting question that few people have looked at with any depth. Onwards extradition - to the United States - entirely a matter of politics. The Swedish Prime Minister has refused to block such an extradition, saying, falsely, that it is a matter entirely for the judiciary, while at the same time pathetically pandering with his other commentary on the case. Infact, he has the power, in the Swedish extradition relationship with the US, to disqualify my extradition. He refuses. According to what I have been told of the protocol between Sweden and the UK, and the US and the UK, the Home Secretary of the UK, simiarly has such power to politically veto such an extradition. The British government, thus far, has refused to do so. Now, while it is convention that an extradition from the UK or Sweden to the US would require the US to agree to not execute or torture me or other european based WikiLeaks staff, any such diplomatic guarentee would be meaningless. Sweden went through that formalism with its CIA assisted extraditions to Egypt, which were immediately ignored. In the US many senior politicians have called for our assassination or life imprisonment. There are three bills before Congress and the Senate to do such things as declare us a "transnational threat", so all our staff can be treated like al-Quada - as "enemy combatants" and shipped off to Bagram or Guantanamo, etc. Nothing Sweden can politely ask for can stop this legislative risk.

Kommentar frÃ¥n Maja: What happens to your work with Wikileaks now? Are you releasing anything new soon?

Julian Assange: We are releasing new material every day. Major efforts throughout South America have appeared in the last week and we have had since the start of the year a special focus on the middle east, which is continuing.

Kommentar frÃ¥n cleo: Hi Julian. Do you see yourself involved in what happening in the Arabic World? Are their fight for freedom based on the document you have revealed?

Julian Assange: The heavy lifting in these revolutions has been done by long standing civil and political groups throughout the middle east. However we have tried to play a part in the region since last year. In particular, we are pround of the work of our media partner Al-Akhbar in Lebanon who published many important stories based on our material in Arabic. Al-Alkbar and WikiLeaks were then banned by the Ben Ali regime of Tunisia. Supportive computer hackers then redirected many Tunisian government websites to WikiLeaks and its cables exposing Ben Ali. Al-Alkbar suffered three critical cyber attacks and had its cable publishing eventually wiped out. The sophistication of the attacks point to state involvement. Subsequently, we worked with the Telegraph and on our own to aggressively expose Mubarak (Egypt), Soliman (Egypt), Bahrain and Libya.

Kommentar frÃ¥n BJ: What makes you think you will not be given a fair trial in Sweden?

Julian Assange: I could never have imagined just how badly the Swedish justice system can be abused. This question needs a very long answer, but Swedes everywhere are coming forward to tell us horror story after horror story. While these domestic considerations are bad enough, in my case we have united both Social Democrat patronage networks through political opportunists like Claes Borgstrom and other radical feminists who hope to get some limelight, together with the worst elements of the Moderates who hope to curry favor with the US. I do see, however that the Swedish press is starting to question what is going on more. But, I loved Sweden and the level of xenophoblic opportunism saddens me. I still believe Sweden can be a good country, but it must first, grow up.

Kommentar frÃ¥n TheAmazingHanna: What do you think the chances are for appealing today's decision?

Julian Assange: The United Kingdom has its own pressures. Just look at the handling of the case here. It was the UK that appealed to keep me in prison, rather than have me under house arrest. It is not that, in terms of law, that the UK is safer at protecting me from the US, rather it is that, at least I am receiving materials in my own language, English, something that the Swedish government has, to this day, refused to do, and being a larger country, the judiciary is further separated from government patronage networks. I have greater ability to fight US extradition in the UK than I do in Sweden. The cables we released about Sweden paint a grim picture. Swedish politicians and bureaucrats sometimes do not follow the rule of law when it comes to their dealings with the United States.

Kommentar frÃ¥n Andreas_A: If you are innocent to the allegations of sexual assault, why do you not willingly return to Sweden to clear your name and your reputation?

Julian Assange: There has been so many abuses by the Swedish government, including the ongoing refusal to provide me any material in English, and the prosecutor Ny lying about interview agreements, that I do not have confidence in the Swedish justice system. Let us not forget that I already gave an interview, stayed in Sweden voluntarily for a month, and the warrant for my arrest was dropped.

Kommentar frÃ¥n Annika: The impression from the press is that this is a conspiracy against you, attacking Wikileaks. What I wonder is if there is any substance to the charges. Can you give any comment to this without compromising the ongoing investigation?

Julian Assange: There is a lot of pressure. We should not let people who want to detract from the seriousness of pressure recast it into a conspiratorial cartoon. That is not how real life tends to work. This case has been going for six months. There are many people and many complicated agendas.

Kommentar frÃ¥n Peter: Are you Wikileaks or will Wikileaks continue if you are in prision?

Julian Assange: I have set structures in play. We will not be stopped.

Kommentar frÃ¥n Gustav F: Don't you believe that "white lies" are a necessety for a functional government? I.E. the US ambassador's personal judgments of certain European leaders.

Julian Assange: The lies we have exposed are not white. They are the highest order concealment of criminality. If governments that conceal reality from their peoples cannot function when those realities are revealed, that's fine by me. Let them be replaced with ones that do not.

Kommentar frÃ¥n Anneli: Do you ever feel guilty that some of your leaks/sources has been exposed ?

Julian Assange: As far as we are aware, we have never failed a source. In two cases, alleged sources allegedly made the mistake of speaking to individuals or not from WikiLeaks.

Kommentar frÃ¥n Martijn: What do you think of Anonymous attacks against websites such as mastercard in order to support you?

Julian Assange:We neither condemn not condone them. They are the online equivalent of a protest and as such are an expression of public sentiment.

Kommentar frÃ¥n Gabriel: What do you fear will happen if you came to Sweden?

Julian Assange: Already answered.

Julian Assange: OK. I have to get back to work now. Thanks everyone. Bye!

Julian Assange: Oh. There is one more thing I would like to say.

Julian Assange: I would like to thank all those Swedish women and men who have stepped forward to help me and tell us what is going on and going wrong. Thanks!

US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Peter Lemkin - 03-03-2011

Lawyers representing the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, have lodged papers to appeal against his extradition from Britain to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.

The high court in London confirmed it had received documents to challenge the ruling made at Belmarsh magistrates court, south London, last week. No date has been set for a hearing.

The 39-year-old Australian had always planned to appeal if he failed to escape the European arrest warrant (EAW) at the first attempt. He faces being sent to Sweden within 10 days if his appeal is unsuccessful.

Last week Assange dismissed the decision to extradite him as a "rubber-stamping process". It came as no surprise, he said, but was wrong. "There was no consideration during this entire process as to the merit of the allegations made against me, no consideration or examination of even the complaints made in Sweden and, of course, we have always known we would appeal."

He has been fighting extradition since he was arrested and bailed in December, and has consistently denied the allegations, made by two women in August last year.

Assange's lawyers argued he would not receive a fair trial in Sweden. They said the warrant was invalid because he had not been charged with any offence and the alleged assaults were not grounds for extradition. Assange fears removal to Sweden will make it easier for Washington to extradite him to the US on possible charges relating to WikiLeaks's release of the US embassy cables. The US has been investigating the WikLeaks website, although no charges have been laid. Sweden would have to ask the UK for any onward extradition.

Assange faces four allegations, the most serious that, during a visit to Stockholm, he had sex with a woman, Miss B, while she was sleeping, without a condom and without her consent. Three counts of sexual assault are alleged by another woman, Miss A. If found guilty of the rape charge he could face up to four years in prison.

Howard Riddle, the chief magistrate at the extradition hearing, acknowledged "considerable adverse publicity" against Assange in Sweden but said if there had been any irregularities in the Swedish system the best place to examine them was in a Swedish trial.

US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Magda Hassan - 11-03-2011

By Elizabeth_M.

Claes Borgstrom explains how a big powerful Swedish politician became involved in the Julian Assange case. He tells all about the relationship between himself and Thomas Bodstrom, including the real reason he and his friend, chief prosecutor Marianne Ny, chose to pursue the case against Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange. Or not..

Sources used in this video..

http://91.214.23.156/cablegate/wire.php?id=08STOCKHOLM748&search=

http://www.thelocal.se/17000/20090119/

Http://chillingmesoftly.com/Blog

http://www.skandinaviflorida.com/web/sif.nsf/archive?openview&type=Catego...

The WikiLeaks founder has good reason, it seems, for why he will not go back to Sweden.
I'm currently looking for more information on any Thomas Bodstrom / Karl Rove / Bonnier family connections and anything dodgy Acando might have been up to in relation to the Assange case.
Julian Assange
Sweden
WikiLeaks
extradition
US diplomatic cables

US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Magda Hassan - 11-03-2011

Swedish police under scrutiny in Assange case

The Associated Press
Thursday, March 10, 2011; 1:27 PM

STOCKHOLM -- Julian Assange's Swedish lawyer says a newspaper report casts doubt on whether the sex abuse investigation against the WikiLeaks founder was carried out in an impartial manner.
Swedish tabloid Expressen reported Thursday that a police officer involved in the initial phase of the probe had personal and political links to one of the two women accusing Assange of sexual misconduct.
Expressen also said the officer, Irmeli Krans, described Assange as a "bubble ready to burst" on her personal Facebook page.
"If this information is correct, then one should carefully consider whether the nature of the investigation is such that he can be assured a fair trial," Assange's lawyer Bjoern Hurtig told The Associated Press.
Assange denies the allegations, which stem from a visit to Sweden in August.
[Image: ad_label_leftjust.gif]

He is currently fighting extradition from Britain, where his lawyers have argued, unsuccessfully so far, that he won't be granted a fair trial if handed over to Sweden.
They also said he risks being handed over to the U.S., which is investigating whether WikiLeaks violated U.S. laws by releasing tens of thousands of secret government documents.
Expressen said Krans knew one of Assange's accusers from their involvement in Sweden's left-wing Social Democratic Party. Krans didn't answer calls and an e-mail seeking comment Thursday.
Stockholm police spokesman Ulf Goranzon rejected any conflict of interest in the investigation. He said Krans didn't interview her supposed friend, but the other woman, and wasn't involved in the investigation after that.

US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Peter Presland - 11-03-2011

Reference post #337, here's an English translation of that Expressen article:

Words fail me - again. The sheer grossness of the abuse of what passes for due legal process is mind-boggling.

Quote: Interrogator in the Assange case friend with woman accusing Wikileaks founder

The police interrogator in the Julian Assange-investigation is a friend of one of the two women who is accusing the Wikileaks founder och sexual assault, Expressen can now reveal.
Personal remarks on the internet reveal that the interrogator and the woman who reported Julian Assange had contact already in April 2009. This was sixteen months before Assange was reported to the police for, amongst others, rape allegations.
On her own Facebook-page the police interrogator two weeks ago praised the lawyer of the two women and described Assange as the "overrated bubble ready to burst".
The Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and his lawyers have on several occasions criticized the Swedish judicial system and claimed that all possibilities of a fair trial have been eradicated.
The prosecutor has been accused of breach of duty and the investigation has been criticized for being a politicial conspiracy. Assange has refered to Sweden as the "Saudi Arabia of feminism".

Connection

Expressen can today reveal that there actually existed both a political and a personal connection between one of the women plaintiffs and one of the police interrogators, whose preliminary questioning weighed heavily when an on duty prosecutor decided order the arrest of Assange last year.
The police interrogator and the woman got to know each other through the Swedish social democratic party, with which both are involved.
The police interrogator has amongst other things been on the board of the HBT (homo-, bi- and transsexual) social democrats. On her homepage she has published pictures of herself together with the retired leader of the party Mona Sahlin, and the former minister Thomas BodstrÃ¶m. The same BodstrÃ¶m who together with the social democrat Claes BorgstrÃ¶m runs the law firm that has been hired by the plaintiffs in the Assange-investigation.
At the same time the police interrogator has - despite participating in the criminal investigation against Assange - commented negatively about the Wikileaks founder on her facebook page.

"Way to go, Claes BorgstrÃ¶m!!!"

When the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet recently let it's readers chat with Assange the interrogator commented:
"What the heck is this??? Judgement zero!!!
The day before she wrote in a status update on her Facebook-page:
"Way to go, Claes BorgstrÃ¶m!!!"
In another status update from late February the police interrogator wrote about "The overrated Assange bubble ready to burst".
In their blogs, the police interrogator and the woman who reported Julian Assange have been open about their friendship. As recently as February 10 this year the woman commented a status update that the interrogator had on her facebook page. The woman still links from her homepage to the private blog of the police interrogator. The interrogator in turn links to her party friend and lawyer Thomas BodstrÃ¶m, who has a vested interest in the Assange case through his law firm.

Had correspondence

Already sixteen months before Julian Assange came to Sweden, invited by the woman who later reported him, the police interrogator and the woman had open correspondence through the internet.
The police interrogator in April 2009 quoted a blog contribution that the Assange-woman had written about white men "who takes the right to decide what is not abusive". The police interrogator establishes that her party friend "puts her finger on the bottom line and speaks out".
The Assange-woman answered by leaving a personal greeting on the blog of the police interrogator:
"Hello! Thanks for the compliment. And like you say, white men must always defend the right to use abusive words. Then they of course deny that these very words are part of a system that keeps their group at the top of the social ladder".

Sixteen months later the female police officer, as interrogator in the Assange investigation, would play an important role when the duty prosecutor ordered the arrest of the Wikileaks-founder, suspected of rape and sexual molestation.
The female police officer had just started her shift at the Klara police station in central Stockholm when the two women showed up. It was on the afternoon of August 20. Just sixteen hours later Expressens scoop of the arrest order against Julian Assange became worldwide news.

The female police soon realised that her friend and party colleague was one of the plaintiffs yet she was still the first to interrogate one of the women in the case. At 16.21 she started the questioning of the other plaintiff, without reporting a conflict of interest that made her participation in the case challengeable.

This questioning session initially came to play a decisive role when on duty prosecutor Maria HÃ¤ljebo Kjellstrand decided to order the arrest of Julian Assange.
HÃ¤ljebo Kjellstrand decided that the facts reported to the police interrogation were so credible that the level of suspicion was probable cause.

Expressen has on several occasions recently had contact with the female police inspector via e-mail. Initially she said she was prepared to answer all questions. But on Wednesday she said:
- It has been decided that questions about the police handling of this matter will be answered by Ulf GÃ¶ranzon (the police press officer) and questions about the ongoing investigation will be answered by the prosecutor. I cannot comment on the matter as a police officer.

Not aware

Police superintendent Ulf GÃ¶ranzon tells Expressen that he is not aware of the fact that the police interrogator is a friend of one of the plaintiffs.

What do you say to those who mean that the public trust for the police has been tarnished by the fact that one of the investigators is a friend of one of the plaintiffs?- Since I do not have any facts, other than rumours, I will not comment on that.

Karin Rosander, information director at the Office Of The Public Prosecutor, comments on the new findings:
- We know that rumours are going around, but the prosecutor has explicitly said that she will not give any comments in this matter while there is an ongoing process in England.

US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Peter Lemkin - 11-03-2011

Partner At Firm Counseling Assange's Accusers Helped In CIA Torture Rendition
By Andrew Kreig

I

Update On Feb. 11 by Andrew Kreig for Professors Blogg

This column's themes have been vindicated in a variety ways since publication. Most important, no dispute arises from the facts. True, some critics have written me to say they object to implications from these facts that injustice is possible. They say the public should withhold judgment and trust the justice system on the Assange case because a huge outcry would arise in both Sweden and throughout Europe over injustice.

If only we could be so sure. Popular uprisings are sporadic, as shown by 30 years of Egyptian rule under a "state of emergency" supported by the Western powers. Also this week, explosive revelations about a secret, U.S.-based campaign against Assange's defenders further undermine the notion that the public should simply trust authorities without continuing vigilance. Here's what is happening in the U.S., along with some of its implications for Europe:

A security company named HBGary Federal that is well-connected to U.S. government and major business clients was exposed as creating a shocking plan to destroy bloggers and activists who defend Assange. The hackers group Anonymous Operation Want ("Anonymous") purloined from HBGary a trove of what it calls 44,000 emails and similar documents apparently showing how the security firm has been developing an illegal disinformation plan for potential sale this month to the law firm Hunton and Williams. The latter works for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and was recommended by the Justice Department to Bank of America for the latter's defense against WikiLeaks exposure.

Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald, an attorney and prominent critic of human rights abuses in the WikiLeaks prosecutions, was a target of the disinformation campaign planned against progressives and whistleblowers. Apparently among them was a key tipster who pointed me to publicly available information that's at the root of my stories about Karl Rove's connections to Swedish Prime Minister Frederic Reinfeldt and the law firm representing Assange's accusers. Another was Think Progress, a publication of the Democratic-oriented think tank Center for American Progress, whose President John Podesta is a former chief of staff for President Clinton and lead the Transition Team in 2008 for President-elect Obama.

Today, Greenwald provided an excellent summary of the new scandal, which is still unraveling. "The firms involved here are large, legitimate and serious, and do substantial amounts of work for both the U.S. Government and the nation's largest private corporations," he wrote. "That's why this should be taken seriously, despite how ignorant, trite and laughably shallow is the specific leaked anti-WikiLeaks proposal. As creepy and odious as this is, there's nothing unusual about these kinds of smear campaigns."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose president Tom Donahue has deep ties to Rove, on Feb. 10 issued a statement denying that it had hired HBGary. Their statement "More Baseless Attacks on the Chamber" said:

We're incredulous that anyone would attempt to associate such activities with the Chamber as we've seen today from the Center for American Progress. The security firm referenced by ThinkProgress was not hired by the Chamber or by anyone else on the Chamber's behalf. We have never seen the document in question nor has it ever been discussed with us.

While ThinkProgress and the Center for American Progress continue to orchestrate a baseless smear campaign against the Chamber, we will continue to remain focused on promoting policies that create jobs.

This is what is known in the United States as a "non-denial denial," a term that came into vogue during the 1970s Watergate scandal when officials would deny some apparent part of a scandal, but not the larger essence itself. In this instance, legal and media critic Marcy Wheeler wrote a column illustrating the distinctions. These and several other non-mainstream columns are excerpted below, along with a recent Russia Today newscast entitled, "Stockholm Syndrome."

The U.S. Justice Department has reportedly convened a federal grand jury to investigate allegations that Anonymous disrupted the business affairs of several major credit card companies and Internet services companies to punish them for discontinuing services to WikiLeaks. We need to examine closely whether authorities are similarly disturbed over an apparent conspiracy against isolated writers and civil rights proponents.

The threat hits close to home, and not simply because someone purportedly from Anonymous last week sent me information showing the elaborate links between Swedish investors, defense contractors, news media and government officials. Those links are interesting but hardly surprising.

More dramatic was a tip investigative reporter Wayne Madsen received Feb. 10 from a formerly prominent Swedish official, who says that the assassinated former Foreign Minister Anna Lindh has been unduly blamed for the 2001 CIA rendition from Sweden to Egypt of two asylum seekers. Eva Franchell, Lindh's aide and a friend, separately wrote much the same thing in a 2009 book.

Let's leave the last word to Greenwald, who wrote today:

The very idea of trying to threaten the careers of journalists and activists to punish and deter their advocacy is self-evidently pernicious; that it's being so freely and casually proposed to groups as powerful as the Bank of America, the Chamber of Commerce, and the DOJ-recommended Hunton & Williams demonstrates how common this is. These highly experienced firms included such proposals because they assumed those deep-pocket organizations would approve and it would make their hiring more likely.

Greenwald's and other recent blogs on these topics are excerpted below and on my Justice Integrity Project website: http://www.justice-integrity.org:

Salon/Unclaimed Territory, The leaked campaign to attack WikiLeaks and its supporters, Glenn Greenwald, Feb 11, 2011. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/11/campaigns/index.html The only unusual aspect here is that we happened to learn about it this time because of Anonymous' hacking. hat a similar scheme was quickly discovered by ThinkProgress demonstrates how common this behavior is.

Think Progress, US Chamber's Lobbyists Solicited Hackers To Sabotage Unions, Smear Chamber's Political Opponents, Lee Fang, Feb. 10, 2011. http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/10/lobbyists-chamberleaks/ ThinkProgress has learned that a law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the big business trade association representing ExxonMobil, AIG, and other major international corporations, is working with set of "private security" companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress, with a surreptitious sabotage campaign.

Think Progress, To Investigate Opponents' Families, Children To Investigate Opponents' Families, Children, Scott Keyes, Feb. 10, 2011. http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/10/chamberleaks-target-families/ Earlier today, ThinkProgress published an exclusive report that the law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a right-wing trade association representing big business, is working with set of "private security" companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress. According to e-mails obtained by ThinkProgress, the Chamber hired the lobbying firm Hunton and Williams. Attorneys for the firm solicited a set of private security firms HB Gary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies (collectively called Team Themis) to develop a sabotage campaign against progressive groups and labor unions, including ThinkProgress, the labor coalition Change to Win, SEIU, U.S. Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com.

Russia Today, Stockholm Syndrome, Rory Suchet, Laura Emmett, Wayne Madsen and Anisa Ardway, Feb. 7, 2011. http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20110207_2?

FireDogLake, EmptyWheel, Feb. 11, 2011.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/02/10/from-the-chamberpot-a-carefully-worded-nondenial-denial/
New emails reveal that the private spy company investigated the families and children of the Chamber's political opponents. The apparent spearhead of this project was Aaron Barr, an executive at HB Gary. Barr circulated numerous emails and documents detailing information about political opponents' children, spouses, and personal lives. One of the targets was Mike Gehrke, a former staffer with Change to Win. Among the information circulated about Gehrke was the specific "Jewish church" he attended and a link to pictures of his wife and two children (sensitive information was redacted by ThinkProgress):

Emptywheel/FireDogLake, Security Firms Pitching Bank of America on WikiLeaks Response Proposed Targeting Glenn Greenwald, Emptywheel, Feb. 9, 2011.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/02/09/security-firms-pitching-bank-of-america-proposed-targeting-glenn-greenwald/About On Saturday, private security firm HBGary Federal bragged to the FT that it had discovered who key members of the hacking group Anonymous are. In response, Anonymous hacked HB Gary Federal and got 44,000 of their emails and made them publicly available.

Wayne Madsen Report, Peering through the shroud of global corruption: Hillary's "all hands" meeting and bribery and kickbacks, Wayne Madsen, Feb. 8, 2011. http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20110209_1 Amid a major FBI and Department of Justice criminal investigation of a hacktivist group known as "Anonymous," which has hacked into public and private computer systems in retaliation for actions taken against WikiLeaks for its release of over 250,000 classified State Department cables, WMR has been contacted by a source close to Anonymous to set the record straight on the group's intentions and convey a road map of its future plans.

Legal Schnauzer, Rove and Wallenberg Are At The Heart Of The Julian Prosecution, Roger Shuler, Feb. 10, 2011. http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2011/02/rove-and-wallenberg-are-at-heart-of.html

A federal grand jury in California is considering evidence against a group of activist hackers that supports the efforts of WikiLeaks to expose official wrongdoing by release of secret documents. Anonymous Operation Want (AOW) was the target of a multi-state FBI raid on January 27, reports Bloomberg. The group has responded with a video that spotlights the role of GOP political strategist Karl Rove and the wealthy Wallenberg family of Sweden as key players in an effort to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on sex-related charges in Europe.

II

Best-selling spy thriller author Thomas BodstrÃ¶m â”€ an attorney whose firm represents the two Swedish women making the notorious sex charges against WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange â”€ knows better than most people that truth is stranger than fiction.
As Sweden's Minister of Justice, BodstrÃ¶m helped his nation in 2001 secretly turn over to the Central Intelligence Agency two asylum-seekers suspected by the CIA of terror, according to materials recently researched via Google by my Justice Integrity Project and by the Legal Schnauzer blog of Roger Shuler. Shuler broke the story Jan. 11 on his blog, "Lawyer for Assange Accusers Has Apparent Ties to CIA and Torture."

The CIA flew the terror suspects to Egypt for torture as part of the decade's rendition effort requiring secret, high-level Swedish cooperation. Assange is the subject of a recent global manhunt by the Swedes seeking him for sex questioning. The United States is investigating him intensely, but has not filed charges. But Assange can take only cold comfort that Sweden, under international pressure, eventually awarded the 2001 asylum seekers damages for torture.

On Jan. 11, Assange's attorneys spoke of their fears that if Great Britain sends their client to Sweden for an inquiry on sex charges he could end up being sent by Sweden to the United States on spy charges. There, the defense lawyers said, Assange could face death or imprisonment at Guantanamo in Cuba, where the Bush and Obama administrations can hold so-called terrorists almost indefinitely with minimal due process.
As a parallel development, the Obama administration has used the disclosures as rationale for a wide-ranging crackdown not simply against WikiLeaks but against anyone in government or the media, particularly the web-based media, who might disclose secrets that the government regards as threatening national security. Our project summarized these developments this week in a column, "Whistleblower Says: Obama's DoJ Declares War on Whistleblowers."

WikiLeaks Questions

BodstrÃ¶m is sometimes described as "the John Grisham of Sweden." He left his parliament seat last year to move to the United States for six months, citing a need for family time and to write another book.
Is BodstrÃ¶m again cooperating with U.S. authorities in their all-out effort to save the United States, Sweden and perhaps BodstrÃ¶m himself from further embarrassment caused by cables WikiLeaks might release from its still-secret trove?

Or are Swedish authorities proceeding normally, as they claim, in launching a global Interpol manhunt to capture Assange to question him about precisely how and why he engaged in sex-without-a-condom last summer with two women who invited him separately to stay with them in their beds while he was on a speaking tour?
Whatever the case, the role of BodstrÃ¶m's firm in helping initiate the sex claims - which are not criminal charges - inevitably bring scrutiny upon his motives, background and law partner Claes BorgstrÃ¶m, a prominent feminist and, like BodstrÃ¶m, a former official in the Social Democratic Party and the primary advocate in the complaint initiated by the firm BorgstrÃ¶m and BodstrÃ¶m.
Update:BorgstrÃ¶m wrote me (January 13th) to stress that this column should reflect that he, not BodstrÃ¶m, represents the two women involved in the Assange matter. At least in the United States and with a small firm, a client is usually ascribed to a firm both in common parlance and for certain formal purposes, such as conflict-of-interest checks. But the original headline is being adjusted to avoid confusion. Other updates are below in the comment section.
Lawyers for Assange made news Jan. 11 by saying their client could be "detained at Guantanamo Bay" or subject to the death penalty if he is extradited from Britain to Sweden, which could lead to extradition or "illegal rendition" to the U.S. The lawyers issued the statement, according to a Huffington Post report, as the WikiLeaks founder appeared in a U.K. court to schedule his extradition hearing for questioning in Sweden over alleged sex crimes.

It's not just Assange and his attorneys who fear trumped-up charges against Assange. Critics in Sweden are saying that their government has been jeopardizing their country's hard-won reputation for political neutrality and human rights. In November, Sweden's parliament announced that it would probe U.S. embassy surveillance of Swedish citizens revealed by WikiLeaks and its media partners.

Political Prosecutions At Home and Abroad

The legal reform project I founded last year got its start investigating the kinds of political prosecutions that became notorious in the United States during the Bush administration in 2007 after revelations that the Justice Department had purged nine U.S. attorneys for political reasons the previous year. Digging deep in such cases, one often finds that some prosecutors use every possible tool to destroy a target under the guise of enforcing the law.

The conventional wisdom is that such prosecutions under Bush were a temporary aberration, perhaps encouraged by then-White House adviser Karl Rove out of partisan zeal before he resigned in mid-2007. But our research has concluded that political interference in the justice system is a serious, longstanding problem blighting both parties and largely ignored by such watchdog institutions as the traditional news media.

The probe of Assange on both sex and spy charges shows how political prosecutions dishonor other nations as well, and carry the potential for undermining web-based news distribution systems that currently provide one of best hopes for citizen oversight of government abuse of power.

Last week, our project published a Connecticut Watchdog column headlined, "Rove Suspected of Role In Swedish WikiLeaks Probe." Rove has long advised Sweden's governing Moderate Party and is well-positioned as a White House veteran of earlier rendition efforts to counsel leaders about the political and media dimensions on the capture of the nomadic Assange.

The column attracted widespread readership and follow-ups elsewhere because of Rove's reputation. The column also attracted several conservative critics, who said Rove's statement on his website bio that he has advised Sweden's governing Moderate Party does not prove that he has specifically advised Prime Minister Fredric Reinfeldt or his administration about WikiLeaks.

Failing to receive a response from Rove for comment, I hosted one of his longtime friends, Timbro Media Institute Executive Director Roland P. Martinsson, on my "Washington Update" public affairs radio show Jan. 6. Martinsson, a leader of Scandinavia's leading conservative, free-market think tank, called for Assange's arrest and said there's no evidence Rove is involved with Reinfeldt or WikiLeaks.

Prof. Brian Palmer of Uppsala University, a Reinfeldt biographer and one of my sources for Reinfeldt's links to Rove, was the guest Jan. 13 on the show, which can be heard live at noon (ET) worldwide or by archive later on the My Technology Lawyer radio network. Listener and dial-in question information is available on the show's website. I am thrilled also to be a guest discussing this next Sunday on Connecticut Watchdog's radio show hosted by George Gombossy.

What follows are further reports drawn from the public record about irregularities in the Assange prosecutions. They paint a picture suspiciously like those of some of the more infamous political prosecutions in the United States of recent years, but as ever this is only a step along the way in investigating what really happened.

The Acussers' Lawyer

Let's start with a Wikipedia bio.
Thomas Lennart BodstrÃ¶m is a Swedish politician and member of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. He was the Swedish Minister for Justice in the two last succeeding governments of the Swedish Prime Minister GÃ¶ran Persson, from 2000 to 2006. Since October 2006 until October 2010 he was the chairman of the Riksdags committee for juridical issuesâ€¦.
Thomas BodstrÃ¶m is the son of Lennart BodstrÃ¶m, Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs 19821985 in the Olof Palme government. In his youth, however, Thomas BodstrÃ¶m was not involved in party politics. Instead, his first brush with media attention came as a football playerâ€¦ He took interest in international affairs and in 1999 he joined the board of the Swedish branch of the international organisation Lawyers Without Borders.
His role in the CIA rendition of two terror subjects in 2001 has become controversial in Sweden after United Nations and Swedish officials began issuing reports. For example, the Swedish news organization The Local reported in 2006, "Sweden broke torture ban during CIA deportation."
Swedish officials just looked on while US agents mistreated Mohammad Alzery, along with fellow Eyptian Ahmed Agiza, at Stockholm's Bromma Airport," according to the news report. "This very serious indeed for Sweden," said Anna Wigenmark, a lawyer at human rights group the Swedish Helsinki Committee, who represented Alzery at the UN.
Who's To Blame?

BodstrÃ¶m has long minimized this role authorizing the 2001 rendition. He and former Prime Minister GÃ¶ran Persson have said that decision-making was a group-effort, with the key choices made by then-Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, who was assassinated in 2003. BodstrÃ¶m said that he only became aware of CIA involvement Jan. 7, 2002 at a meeting with the then-head of the security police, SÃ¤po.

But Lindh's friend and former communications director, Eva Franchell, wrote "The Friend," a 2009 book that implicated BodstrÃ¶m and Persson. According to press reports in 2009, Franchell wrote that BodstrÃ¶m learned about the rendition at the same time as her late boss, Dec. 17, the day before U.S. authorities flew the men to Egypt. Franchell's book also said the United States had threatened Sweden with heavy trade sanctions unless the nation complied with the rendition.

Even accepting BodstrÃ¶m's defense, his government's overall cooperation with renditions undercuts claims by Sweden's establishment that its justice system is immune from political pressure, including from the United States.

Instead, those who delve into those matters can see beneath the surface a pattern of human rights rhetoric that coexists with behind-the-scenes battles over whether the nation would live up to such aspirations. For example, a start-up group Stop NATO Sweden last year published a long white paper, "From Neutrality to NATO." It documented how leaders of major parties in Sweden have been supporting the U.S.-dominated North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in ways incompatible with Sweden's neutrality traditions.

In December, a Swedish medical school professor and noted human rights advocate wrote a hard-hitting column headlined, "Assange Buried the Swedish Neutrality Myth." Dr. Marcello Vittorio Ferrada-Noli wrote that Sweden can no longer enjoy the image "of a modern, independent, democratic and non-aligned country" because of WikiLeaks, and therefore is embarked on what he called "revenge."

His next column Jan. 11 was headlined, "The Swedish political crusade against Assange and WikiLeaks." It argued that BodstrÃ¶m and his law partner initiated the questionable sex charges that obscured Bodstrom's dealings with U.S. authorities, as well as scandalous sellouts by officials since then of Swedish business interests.
The validity of Sweden's sex crime investigation has been debated in many quarters and is conveniently framed by an exchange of open letters last month between filmmaker Michael Moore and a Swedish defender of its procedures.

Next Steps

The ending of this thriller is not in sight. Without the power of subpoena, scriveners can only advance the plot incrementally by bringing forward such "new" material about the pasts of such an important characters in this saga as those representing Assange's accusers. Our project attempted to contact them for comment without success before publication. We shall continue, and provide updates here.
In the meantime, one has to wonder why the lawyer background isn't more widely known, at least in the United States. This is particularly true of BodstrÃ¶m, who for so long was so prominent in government and elsewhere in such interesting ways. The background is all public. Bonnier AB, Sweden's most important media company and also highly influential in government and diplomacy, has vast resources to connect the dots for its readers, for example. So do the major U.S. news organizations.
Is there something boring about a handsome, best-selling author, former football star like BodstrÃ¶m, who served as one of Europe's top legal officials and is now embroiled in major international sex scandal and political intrigue? What if the scandal ultimately threatens to restrict the world's whistleblowers, reporters and their readers from learning what's in government documents?

Andrew Kreig

US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks - Peter Lemkin - 11-03-2011

[quote=Peter Presland]Reference post #337, here's an English translation of that Expressen article:

Words fail me - again. The sheer grossness of the abuse of what passes for due legal process is mind-boggling.

[QUOTE] Interrogator in the Assange case friend with woman accusing Wikileaks founder

The police interrogator in the Julian Assange-investigation is a friend of one of the two women who is accusing the Wikileaks founder och sexual assault, Expressen can now reveal.
Personal remarks on the internet reveal that the interrogator and the woman who reported Julian Assange had contact already in April 2009. This was sixteen months before Assange was reported to the police for, amongst others, rape allegations.
On her own Facebook-page the police interrogator two weeks ago praised the lawyer of the two women and described Assange as the "overrated bubble ready to burst".
[/QUOTE]

That alone should [I said SHOULD!!!] shut down the attempts at prosecution. In the USA it would be grounds to move for the prosecutor to be REMOVED....and not replaced. It seems the CIA is deeply involved in this, as is Rove and his minions - no matter what you think of Assange and Wikileaks.